The Turtle Mound Murder by Mary Clay Page A

really chowing down. Wonder
what they had.”
    “Probably seafood,” I said dryly. Penny Sue
curled her lip in a mock sneer.
    The meal would have been perfect except for
two inebriated rednecks at the next table who kept trying to flirt.
One had dark curly hair pulled back in a pony tail, the other had
stringy blonde hair, brown teeth and needed a bath in the worst
way.
    “Whew, that boy is stinky,” Ruthie said
under her breathe as she scooted as far away from him as
possible.
    “The catfish is the best thing on the menu,”
Stinky declared loudly. We all pointedly ordered something
else.
    “Where are you girls from? There’s a good
band down at the Breakers. How long y’all staying? Wanna take a
ride on my motorcycle?” There was an endless stream of inane
remarks. We started out responding with clipped, polite statements.
Then, “You look like a girl who loves hush puppies,” that said to
Penny Sue. I was glad she didn’t have her gun. She shot Stinky a
look that would have killed a sober person. That’s when we started
ignoring them all together. But it was hard.
    The food was greasy and good. I pressed my
thumb on the Kraft paper when I finished. It left an oily spot in
spite of the fact that I’d already gone through a half dozen paper
towels.
    We finished eating and called for the check.
Penny Sue disgustedly counted out two twenties and a ten. “I think
you’d better cut them off,” she whispered to the waitress as we
pushed past.
    We made a quick stop in the ladies’ room
(Ruthie absolutely could not pass one without going in) then headed
out the door. The parking lot was packed. Rows had appeared where
none existed before and we paused to get our bearings. Clearly none
of us had had past lives as Indian scouts, because it took a fair
amount of wandering around for us to find the bright yellow
car.
    Penny Sue hung a left on A1A/Turtlemound
Road and headed back toward the condo. We were chattering happily
when Penny Sue broke in with a “Crap!”
    “I’ve got two motorcycles right on my
bumper,” she said angrily. “People talk about cars following
motorcycles too closely, half of them are just as bad. Idiots. If I
were to suddenly stop those guys wouldn’t have a chance.”
    Ruthie was sitting in the front seat and
turned around to look. “One’s pulling out. I think they’re going to
pass.”
    “Good,” Penny Sue said. The motorcycle
pulled alongside and stayed there. Penny Sue slowed down, but
rather than dart ahead, the bike held back. “What the—” She glanced
at the bike from the corner of her eye. “Darn. It’s the redneck
with the pony tail from JB’s.”
    “The restaurant must have taken your advice
and cut them off,” I said.
    “And now they’re ticked off,” Ruthie
added.
    Penny Sue tightened her grip on the steering
wheel and set her jaw. The motorcycle traveling abreast of us had
started to drift toward the car. Penny Sue edged over. The cycle
moved closer still. “He’s trying to run us off the road,” Penny Sue
said and floored it. The Mercedes lurched ahead, yet the bike kept
pace. Stinky, on our bumper, pulled alongside, too. They were
hooting and hollering and acting like drunken fools. Our
speedometer crept up to sixty-five.
    Then, four bright lights appeared from
gods-knows-where, illuminating the back of the car. I turned around
and squinted to see. It was a pickup truck with spotlights mounted
on the bumper. And, the truck was red! “Oh no, that red truck is
behind us,” I exclaimed.
    “Oh, God. Oh, God,” Ruthie cried nervously.
Then, “Om-m-m. Om-m-m.” The sound bounced around the interior of
the car. Ruthie was chanting.
    “What the heck are you doing?” Penny Sue
demanded.
    “Setting up a protection field.”
    “Tone it down, will you? I need to
think.”
    “Let her think, Ruthie. Let her think.” My
heart was racing, pounding in my throat. Turtlemound was a two-lane
road with numerous cross streets. At any moment a car could pull
out